"Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly" : Kafka

Ficto-real

Raman and Aamir stopped by a roadside thela (a type of open kiosk) to eat omelette after a heated argument on hypocrisy and Communism and how being a communist was as good as a hypocrite.

While they were savouring, a car stopped by and a man in mid-thirties with his son (‘round 8 years) came to eat up the last omelette. After eating the omelette, man was explaining to his son addition of numbers, who was too dim to get it.

“See Neelu…one omelette is for 23 rupees. We had two omelettes…..so we should pay 23+23=46 rupees.”

The Son gave an unsure nod. Raman and Aamir were watching the didactics carefully.

Father handed a 100 rupee note to Ramu, a school drop-out who aids his old master in running kiosk. Ramu quickly removed 54 rupees from his old, ragged money-bag and returned it to his customer.

It didn’t surprise the father. Obvious.

Aamir called Ramu and asked him pointing towards the sky, “Upar kya dikhta hain” (What do you see above)??

(Brother, I can see clouds. Clouds of three colours- white, blue and black. Blue ones are just like you, always troubled by the sun. Black ones; just like me which keep crying and white ones…everyone knows who they are but no one speaks about them. Go home early, brother. If these black clouds start pouring in, it’ll create troubles. They will cover the whole sky and then blue and white clouds will disappear).

That day won't be far away then....when you'll see all similar faces, all alike and just one colour : Red

His answer dumbfounded Aamir plus Raman.

Both had their own stringent and inflexible views on Communism as well as hypocrisy. They thought from two pair similar of eyes, yet very much differently.

After Ramu’s answer, they felt their opinions were nothing but very much alike.

“You think he knew everything??” asked Raman.

Aamir kept looking at a cycler pedalling a housewife with her mundane luggage.

(A wet eye, a shaken life is not enough,
The accusation of a hidden love is not enough,
With feet in chains, Let us go in public today.Pack up your belongings O Injured heart ones!
Let us go friends and get killed once again.)

‘There was an isolated island in the mysterious ocean. It was unique and one of its kind. Civilizations here, unlike other societies were extremely happy and they never felt sad and lonely on this lone island. Weird. They were well-connected with the world economically, socially as well as politically.

Folks here were scientifically innovative and were steps ahead than rest. The standout feature of hypocritical societies was that they had no emotions, no feelings and no passion. Anthropological studies on this island were restricted only to the physical aspect of social relationship of human beings. No one ever spoke of emotions as they never understood what feelings were. Thence arts wasn’t much developed here due to cold sapiens around.

Had Engels and Marx been alive today, they would have felt proud of their materialism theory obviously with mortals here disowning ‘feelings’ part of doctrine due to ineffective emotions.

Strange traditions were followed on this shadowed part of the earth. They had developed a multifaceted machine (called e-mach) which spoke on the compatibility of human beings and whether they could live with each other, was dissected. Marriages weren’t made in heaven here but they were controlled by this cryptic device. Couples went to this secret place which was under military control marked by hush-hush intelligence operations. Then an hour of scanning and analysis by this e-mach would decide the fate of any couplet. The output screen of e-mach displayed only three results that too very objectively.

Green meant that mates were meant for each other. But this didn’t guarantee them of a safe and prosperous future.

Yellow signified that they were compatible but their body wasn’t ready for each other and so they should give some more time and come back again after a while.

Red implied that the pair was highly contrastive and their staying or marrying would lead to disaster.

Understandably there was no such thing called as Love here. Their body structure was seriously mystifying. They had normal hormones just like us but they lacked emotions. They had colours yet they never enjoyed it. They had adopted music yet they never appreciated it. They had poetry yet they never savoured it. There was beauty which was admired only physically. Too utopian?? Or too practical??

There was a misfit guy named Bhavik staying in here. He was different from creatures staying on this island. He had emotions; his heart beat faster at times, things around gave him goosebumps. At an adolescent age, he had been green and was in love. He loved a damsel very much, much beyond words. He expressed his emotional state to his princess. Handsome he already was, princess too liked him physically with barred emotions.

They decided to take a step further and psychoanalyzed their future through the e-mach. It gave a red-blinking after the analysis.

Every single day the guy played violin. Just for her. She didn’t budge and wanted to play it safe.

Do I need to tell you what happened next??’

“Wake up Tanuj…stop dreaming…lazy bum…I’ve been here since past one hour”, shouted Neha.

“O’darling….when did you come??” *rubbing his eyes*

“I’ve signed the divorce papers….meet me near civil section of the court by 2.30. Chalo bye…made French toast for breakfast…mumma is waiting down. Bye”

Before Tanuj could open his mouth, she turned her face filled with tears and left.

He started playing violin. She saw back straight into his eyes. Came running back and gave him a tight hug as if she really needed him.

Abhay kept on puffing with new vigour thinking ‘bout Kavita eluding his wife, mentally as well as physically.

Abhay and Rahi were college sweethearts. Both had common interests like Mumbai, hostel life, soft rock, definitive literature, clove cigarettes, painting and poetry. Except for he loved it on the couch and she enjoyed it on the bed. They tied knots two years after their Masters in Business Administration. They knew each from head to toe. She typically followed the other side of the Arabic matrimonial equation that is curtailing her liberty to move alone and secretly basked it. But he was a classifiable and predictive north Indian stud with a good physique ready to flirt with every other juicy girl he came across. Her parents dissented strongly after she eloped with him. Still she considered herself lucky as far as her marriage was concerned; reason being his intelligence, romanticism and tomfoolery.

Before marriage, things were different at least for Abhay. He was very much interesting, creative and expressive in the first place. Their ‘mental-intimacy’ clearly outdid physical involvement. She first proposed him during their masters, he rejected as he had a crush on some already set-aside damsel. As every XY chromosome bearer is a loyalist slave of testosterone, he was no exception. They both got together within a month. It was his second relationship while she never earlier dated due to societal obligations. And yes, he sensed some void in their affinity but couldn’t express his incertitudes to emotionally unstable and already imbalanced wife especially after her father left for heaven’s abode due to heart attack.

Everything was so foreseeable in their deadening relationship and so only they decided to turn into parents hoping that a child would light up their benighted aroha. Typical Indian couple!!

He brought her same pineapple cake since years on birthdays as clichéd surprise. Looking at his eyes on dinner table, she would pass on knowing what he needed. They knew each other too much to express in words. Eyes did all the conversation. He too realised that such quixotic stuff seemed good only in poems. Both were unknowingly going deep into the web weaved by ‘too much of love’.

Kavita: fair, slim and aphrodisiacal girl who came in as intern was the new protagonist in his life. She as a single child always resorted to surrogate relationships after her parents separated. He started butterflying her hoping to complete his incomplete life. And it clicked between them. Never earlier did he experience such calmness and solace but his heart was torn apart thinking about unborn child. As always he thought she was the one, his soul mate. She was one devil-may-care lover and never took him that seriously for obvious reasons. His kinship with Kavita reached a celestial point and there was no looking back after that.

Rahi was admitted into a hospital during her last month. She easily noticed guilt in his eyes but kept mum. She kept on asking with her eyes, ‘Is she more beautiful??’ Once, such a great debater lost life’s most important case with a straight defeat. He did nothing but closed his eyes in reply trying hard to cry but couldn’t. Wild damaging and negative thoughts took over him.

Allah blessed Abhay with a baby girl.Rahi died during pregnancy owing to excess blood loss from her body.

He entered the hospital ward with mixed feelings. Went near his wife. Took her hand in his hands and tried hard to cry, again he couldn’t. Then he turned his eyes towards the new-born, her eyes clearly resembling Rahi’s. He was taken aback by the ‘Is she more beautiful??’ look which the baby gave him.

Tears came down his cheeks for the first time in life. He tried controlling his feelings….but eyes kept on pouring as if they were separated from his body, mind and soul!

No sooner did I reach canteen than my eyes started looking for that beauty. She wasn’t there that day. As always I and my friend Ravi ordered special chai.

I purposely sat facing the road which she takes for canteen so that I can gaze her for long and that sight…of those kajal-clad innocent eyes gives me ‘eyegasm’. Never ever in my life earlier did I observe a girl so minutely. Within few minutes, I saw her coming towards canteen, all alone today. That scene of watching her walk from blur to clarity is something worth capturing and most precious. My heart slowly started showing colours then, beating faster than never.

She reached canteen, gave me that truehearted and much awaited look. Her seraphic look benumbs me so much that I couldn’t even give her a smile. Then I secretly follow her facial expressions and expressive eyes. Well…this lasts for 15 minutes and then I go back to my normal, draggy life longing to see her again!!

This happens almost every time I see her in canteen. And I’ve visited canteen so many times, just to catch a glimpse of her that I can even draw a probability distribution curve of her canteen visits!!

But these days are different. Even my mornings are dark. I haven’t seen her in moons. Not even anywhere in college. I visit canteen thrice a day just to watch those beautiful pair of eyes, but no luck. Ergodic and scary thoughts going inside my mind daunt me. ‘What if she met with an accident??’ ‘What if she left college?? What if she’s having viral??’ And the worst of all, ‘’What if she stopped visiting canteen ‘cause of me??’

As luck would have it I saw her in canteen few days later. But this time she had reached before me. I made up my mind, this time I will pass a nonchalant smile. I gazed at the damsel appreciating her beauty. She didn’t look back. No response. Benighted me, dropped a cup of tea so that she would respond at least to the sound of shattering. Still, no reaction. I hurried and went off to hostel with my friend.

Contemplating about what was going on in my life since few weeks, I calmly decided to give it a grave thought. But I was unable to becalm myself. Anxious.

The world seems so dark as if seasonal affective disorder has come over me. She is as good as a stranger to me. I don’t know her name. I don’t know where on earth she lives. I don’t know what language she speaks, what food she eats.